1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to semiconductor devices having an epitaxial source/drain.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Epitaxial structures are prevalently used in a wide variety of semiconductor applications. For example, the prior art usually forms an epitaxial layer such as a silicon germanium (hereinafter abbreviated as SiGe) layer in a single crystal substrate by performing a selective epitaxial growth (hereinafter abbreviated as SEG) method. Since the epitaxial layer has the crystalline orientation almost identical to the crystalline orientation of the substrate, the epitaxial layers serves as a raised source/drain or a recessed source/drain for the semiconductor device. Because the lattice constant of the epitaxial SiGe layer is larger than that of the silicon substrate, a strain stress is generated to the channel region of the meta-oxide semiconductor (hereinafter abbreviated as MOS) transistor device. Accordingly, carrier mobility in the channel region is improved and the speed of the MOS transistor device is increased.
Although the epitaxial structures efficiently improve device performance, it increases complexity of the semiconductor fabrication and difficulties of process control. More important, devices of different conductivity types require strain stresses of different types, even the devices of the same conductivity type require strain stresses of the same type but different magnitudes. Therefore, it is getting more and more difficult to design and fabricate semiconductor devices having epitaxial structures.
Accordingly, though the epitaxial structure is able to improve the device performance, it is always in need to provide semiconductor devices as expected when the progress of semiconductor manufacturing technology is improved and complexity of the products is increased.